Scripture Daily

Context No. 1473 of 4322 · Leviticus

Context · Reflection

Leviticus 1:10-17: in context

10“‘If his offering is from the flock, from the sheep or from the goats, for a burnt offering, he shall offer a male without defect. 11He shall kill it on the north side of the altar before the LORD. Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall sprinkle its blood around on the altar. 12He shall cut it into its pieces, with its head and its fat. The priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is on the altar, 13but the innards and the legs he shall wash with water. The priest shall offer the whole, and burn it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, of a pleasant aroma to the LORD. 14“‘If his offering to the LORD is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall offer his offering from turtledoves or of young pigeons. 15The priest shall bring it to the altar, and wring off its head, and burn it on the altar; and its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar; 16and he shall take away its crop and its feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, in the place of the ashes. 17He shall tear it by its wings, but shall not divide it apart. The priest shall burn it on the altar, on the wood that is on the fire. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, of a pleasant aroma to the LORD.

This passage continues the law of the burnt offering. One may bring an animal from the flock, a sheep or a goat without defect, offered whole on the altar as a pleasing aroma to the LORD. But then the law makes provision for those who cannot afford livestock: if a person's offering is a burnt offering of birds, he may bring turtledoves or young pigeons. The bird is offered on the altar in the same way, and it too is a pleasing aroma to the LORD. The offering is scaled to what the worshiper can afford.

The provision for birds is a small mercy easy to overlook, but it says something about God. Not everyone in Israel could afford a bull, or even a sheep; the poor had little to bring. And rather than shut them out of worship, or receive their small offering as second-rate, God made a way for them to bring what they could, two birds, and declared it, in exactly the same words used for the bull, a pleasing aroma to the LORD. The poor person's two pigeons were as acceptable to God as the rich person's ox. What God received was not the size of the gift but the worshiper who brought it, according to what they had. There is real comfort in that for anyone who feels they have little to offer God. He does not measure our offerings against those of people who have more to give; he receives what we bring according to what we have, and the small gift of the poor is as pleasing to him as the large gift of the rich. It was this principle Jesus honored when he watched a poor widow put two small coins into the treasury and said she had given more than all the rich, because she gave out of her poverty. God accepts the offering scaled to what we can afford. Whatever little we have to bring, brought sincerely, is a pleasing aroma to him, no less than the great gifts of those who have more.

Do I hold back from offering God what I have because it seems small beside what others can give, when he receives the offering scaled to our means, and the poor person's two birds are as pleasing to him as the rich person's ox?

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